David Buckland - 12:26am Oct 15, 1998 PST (#38 of 39)
Alfred/Rick: I have had Peninsula Italica for a little while, but only
got around to playing it recently (perhaps 'trying to play it' is more
accurate).
Although I am going from memory (so please bear with me if I get any
details wrong), I am fairly sure that it is not a follow-on to Hispania,
or linked in any way to the Azure Wish game (more's the pity). It seems
to have been first published in 1993, which would put it before
Maharajah & Hispania, both of which are 1994 titles. The designer, whose
name I cannot recall, was Italian, as indeed is Camelot (the publisher).
As to whether the missing rules are important: if you have played others
in the sequence, then you can probably muddle through. One example was
that nowhere in the rules was there any coverage of Major Invasions.
Several of the individual peoples in the game arrive via an "Invasione"
according to their cards (others just arrive normally), and this would
indicate a parallel with Britannia et al, in which these major arrivals
are marked by a double turn for the invaders. The rules are silent on
this subject.
Just as serious are the problems with the rules that are there. The copy
I have appears to be the 2nd Edition, and there seem to have been some
major changes from the earlier version, not all for the better. PI has
just three types of unit: infantry, archers (or elite infantry), and
cavalry. Each have a purchase cost and a maintenance cost. In the 1st
Edition, this was 5/1 (respectively) for infantry, the cheapest units,
while this is increased to 10/2 in the 2nd. This creates a difficulty in
that there is a restriction on the amount of unexpended
population/resources that can be carried over from any one turn: 4
points. This in turn makes it very difficult for anyone to "grow" extra
forces without owning most of the good terrain in Italy. In fact, given
that all three unit types cost 2 in maintenance, but half the areas
produce 2 or less in income, the At Start peoples have great difficulty
even maintaining themselves, let alone growing.
Moving to more subjective points, I thought the combat system was a step
backwards. Unlike the other games, here each force (attacker and
defender) totals their combat points: 1 point for infantry, 2 for
cavalry, etc. One die is rolled for the entire force (rather than per
unit), and casualties inflicted, depending upon the size of the force,
and modifiers to the die roll (attacking cavalry in plain get a positive
modifier, for example). I felt that this was less interesting than the
individual unit rolls of the other games - since 4 points is bound to
inflict at least one casualty point, combats against enemy "garrisons"
frequently become sure things.
For those who want to know more about PI, it is very definitely the
Plain Jane of the series: a player's peoples have a common colour, but
apart from the name of the people (Etrusci, Siculi, Sardi, etc.) at the
bottom of the counter, one infantry/archer/cavalry counter is identical
to another of the same type. The game covers approximately 2000 years up
to the outbreak of the 1st Punic War on a map of Italy (plus Sardinia &
Corsica) divided into 50-odd areas of mountain, forest, plain, & marsh.
There are therefore slightly more areas than in most of the other games,
but the map is smaller (much of it sea).
Our suspicion was that the game might work reasonably well by importing
wholesale the rule set from another in the series. However, as only two
of our group had played anyof these other games, and we were not certain
about this, we decided to abandon PI for something less opaque. I have
not yet managed to take a more detailed look at PI, to see whether it
could work under these circumstances (play balance, for example, would
be an issue, as it is with the other games).
Despite the negatives in the preceding paragraphs, I am hopeful that PI
contains the bones of a good game, and for others who liked Britannia et
al, it might be a good investment. On the other hand, to be avoided if
it is your first foray with the system.